The New Criterion

Now, only a couple of months down the road, it’s a little hard to remember how, towards the end of last year, Hillary and Bill Clinton were being described as having “passed some point where they’re no longer just politicians. They’re rock stars.” I confess to having been among those who indulged myself in a certain amount of head-shaking and tongue-clucking about this description of them at the time (See “Clooney Tunes” in The New Criterion of December, 2007). Who was to know that it could all change so swiftly? I seem to feel the chill wind of mortality brushing the back of my neck as I reflect on the evanescence of something so solid-seeming—aren’t both rocks and stars by-words for permanence?—as “rock star” status. Or is it possible that, having been a metaphorical rock star, you can suddenly become something very much less exalted, and then hope to resume rock-star st ...

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